Networking architectures have grown increasingly complex in communication environments. For example, femto cells have gained recent notoriety due to their capabilities. In general terms, femto cells represent wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect mobile devices to a mobile operator's network (e.g., using broadband connections). For a mobile operator, the femto cells offer improvements to both coverage and capacity. For many service network scenarios, bandwidth and/or resource allocation protocols can pose a number of problems for end users and network operators. In other scenarios, local Internet Protocol (IP) network access communications can have similar bandwidth allocation issues. For all of the aforementioned technologies (and for others), bandwidth management presents a significant challenge to network operators, device designers, and system administrators alike.